Over the past couple of months retailers have been preparing for the worst, battering down the hatches and getting ready to weather the Amazon Australia storm. After rumours circulating last week Amazon Australia would not be launching until next year it seemed it would be clear skies, until this morning.

Now retailers are faced with how to combat the US behemoth but Channelnews has found a titbit retailers might find interesting.

When trying to compare products sold in Australia from retailers such as Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and Myer it was difficult to find matching laptops and desktop PCs on the Australian Amazon site.

For example, HP’s top rated Spectre X360 13-AE009TU touchscreen laptop is available at JB Hi-Fi just not on Amazon Australia.

[JB HiFi]

[Amazon Australia]

Another popular laptop is the Lenovo Yoga 310 11.6″ 2-in-1 laptop both sold at JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman but once again not on the Amazon Australia website. However for both examples Amazon does show similar items but comparing the prices they are not the same model.

This could be temporary with the site only launching only overnight so it could still be organising itself to have identical products to retailers or maybe it is trying to differentiate itself from the Australian market. Either way, only time will tell what Amazon Australia is up to and how it will impact the Australian retail industry.